December 7. On this date in 1983, Yvonne (Liegois) Cuellar died in Littleton, Colorado. Born in Paris, France, she would later move to Bolivia where she became a Bahá’í. Although the artist Marina Núñez del Prado was the first Bolivian Bahá’í, she did not remain active, so Yvonne Liegois Cuellar is recognized as the first Bahá’í in Bolivia.
Born in France on March 11, 1896, Yvonne Cuellar and her husband, Arturo Cuellar, lived in La Paz, Bolivia, in the 1940s where they had an American boarder, Eleanor Adler, who was first Bahá’í pioneer to Bolivia. Both she and her husband became Bahá’ís and helped establish the first Baha'i community of La Paz.
Yvonne Liegois Cuellar became a Bahá’í on May 18, 1941. Although Marina Núñez del Prado, a celebrated sculptor, was the first Bolivian to become a Bahá’í, on February 2, 1941, she did not remain active, so Yvonne Cuellar is recognized as the first Bahá’í in Bolivia. Shoghi Effendi called her the "Mother of Bolivia". Arturo Cuellar would later become a Bahá’í in 1946 through his wife's efforts.
In 1953, the Cuellars moved to the United States but returned to Bolivia in 1956 at the request of the National Spiritual Assembly of that country. In 1958 she traveled to France to help establish the inaugural National Spiritual Assembly, which was dissolved two years later through reports of Hand of the Cause Abu'l-Qásim Faizi by the authority of the Custodians due to a majority of the Assembly's acceptance of Charles Mason Remey's claim to being the second Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith subsequent to the death of Shoghi Effendi.
In 1968 the Cuellars once again moved to the United States. Yvonne Cullear died in Littleton, Colorado on December 7, 1983.
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